In January, Governing ran a story on how governments should be managing e-mail. That feature included this bit of information: ...elected leaders are devising ways ...

In January, Governing ran a story on how governments should be managing e-mail. That feature included this bit of information:

...elected leaders are devising ways to escape permanent retention of e-mails by sending them through private accounts, thus making it difficult or impossible even to find them. The chief aide to one Phoenix councilwoman transmitted a memo to staff members telling them to send e-mails on controversial issues to an AOL account rather than to the city's e-mail system.

A group of computer hackers said yesterday they accessed a Yahoo! e-mail account of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, publishing some of her private communications to expose what appeared to be her use of a personal account for government business.

"There's a reason the governor should be using her own official e-mail channels, because of security and encryption," said a lawyer who represents an activist who filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking emails from another Palin Yahoo account. "She's running state business out of Yahoo?"

Take heed, all you governors who someday hope to be vetted and sniped at and inspected under a microscope...I mean...run for higher office. You've been warned.